Katrina, Conservatives, Liberals, and the Poor

Scotty McClellan says we should not play the "blame game." Only God knows if Bush was 45% responsible; Blanco, 30%, or Nagin, 25%. I think it goes much deeper than that, and it's an attitude (that expresses itself in what local, state, and the Federal government spends their resources on) prevalent since at least 1980 (maybe 1968??) that government has no role in anything (to famously quote Paul Weyrich saying that government should be so small that it would drain down a tub), in this new age of robber baronry, where the poor have been demonized under the rubric of "personal responsibility," so-called. Thus, poverty is no more looked at as a societal problem but as a moral failing of the poor themselves, thus making it easier to walk away from them.

And, as a Christian, I think that the current incarnation of robber baron crony capitalism is profoundly unchristian.

Both conservatives and liberals have been failing the poor.

A man is drowning, just off the shore.

The liberal reaction--let's create a bunch of regulations, and maybe increase funding for ropes, so this doesn't happen again. Maybe if you are more of a leftist than a liberal, demand that the government subsidize ropes for every citizen.

The conservative reaction--it's the drowning man's personal responsibility--he got himself in that predicament, and it would be an offense to his freedom if we helped him now. Drowning is a multigenerational pathology. If we are to help at all, it should be to give him instruction in how to make or buy ropes, or at least to carry ropes in the future.

In both cases, the man drowns.